"dave stanton" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news

(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 01:49:23 +0100, Martin² wrote:
>
>> If you want a good, cheap but new one I would go for D-Link DSL-504T
>> £35.24
>> from broadbandbuyer.co.uk or little more from PC World / Dixons or maybe
>> Currys.
>
> But know what your after before you set foot in plonkerworld otherwise
> you might run from there screaming if you have to talk to a droid <g>.
To be fair, some of the PC World staff are quite knowledgeable and helpful -
but a great many aren't it's true. What I find really lets PC World down is
that they don't have on display examples of everything they stock (I didn't
even know they sold Netgear routers till I looke don the web site) and many
items don't have an associated price ticket on the shelf. Many times I've
pointed this out to store managers (people aren't going to buy things that
aren't on display or which have no price) but the managers at my local
branch (Oxford) seem as if they simply couldn't care :-(
Certainly it pays to order in advance over the web and collect an hour
later: I bought a router that would have cost about £80 off the shelf for
about £60 by ordering ahead - which makes PC World almost competitive with
mail order... and a damn sight more convenient because you get the product
there and then, and don't have to wait in all day for the courier to arrive.
When I ordered my own router mail order (from Dabs, I think), I waited in
all day (well past the latest time that Parcelforce said they'd call) and
then when I had to go out, left a note on my door asking for it to be
delivered next door (where there was definitely someone in). Apparently the
driver arrived at some unspecified time later, didn't even leave a "while
you were out" card and didn't try to deliver next door as I'd requested.
Although it is Parcelforce policy to try to deliver to a neighbour, it's
left to the driver's discretion so a lazy driver can decide not to bother.
Once an item is on the driver's van, Parcelforce lose all ability to track
its position until it's returned undelivered to the warehouse. Pathetic!
You'd think that in the 21st Century they'd have GPS on the van and an
online tracking system to record precisely when the driver tried to deliver
and why he failed ("tried to deliver to Number 27 and Number 29; no-one in;
giving up after at least trying").